Is this a surprise? I've blogged about this many times before.

Over the last several months, the mornings I go to Starbucks are unusually quiet. No long lines in the drive-thru, and few people sucking down lattes and cruising on their laptops inside. The parking lot is near empty. I've been predicting massive store closures for over a year. Yet I kept reading about how Starbucks was going to move forward with its current growth pattern.

To put it another way, Starbucks is closing 19 percent of all U.S. company-operated stores that opened in the last two years, Chief Financial Officer Pete Bocian said during a conference call.

I love Starbucks. It ain't broke. The product is good, the marketing is right, and the stores are inviting and cozy. Recent attempts at drawing in customers (such as improving "coffee smells" within its stores) were pointless, because the company was already doing most everything right. But the average Starbucks customer is not financially able to continue to spend $4 - $6 on a coffee, especially as the credit economy tightens, and the use of credit cards become the exception rather than the norm. It is time that Starbucks admit defeat - against the oncoming tide of economic depression - and stop pretending that it could continue along its path of unstoppable growth. This business is going to have to hunker down and keep a lid on things in order to survive in times where coffee and scones goes from being a habit to becoming a slice in peoples' budgets.